Katherine Johnson, known as one of the "human computers" at NASA Langley, turns 100 years old on Aug. 26, 2018. Johnson visited her alma mater West Virginia State University, which is commemorating her centennial with a statue, on Saturday to celebrate.

Katherine Johnson, known as one of the "human computers" at NASA Langley, turns 100 years old on Aug. 26, 2018. Johnson visited her alma mater West Virginia State University, which is commemorating her centennial with a statue, on Saturday to celebrate.

Over the summer, Norfolk police officers became internet superstars. The Police Department — responding to a challenge from police in Corinth, Texas — released a video on Facebook in July of more than three dozen officers dancing and lip-syncing to "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. It's since been viewed more than 78 million times, got the department featured on NBC News and even earned them an award and $5,000 donation from the MASIE Center in New York. A few other area law enforcement agencies, including Hampton and York County, also made challenge videos, but none were as popular as Norfolk's.

From beef to bliss

Just weeks after escalating a scathing feud with Drake , Pusha T, who grew up in Virginia Beach, and his longtime girlfriend, Virginia Williams, wed at the recently restored Cavalier hotel, an Oceanfront landmark.

Luminaries at the nuptials on July 21 included Kanye West and wife Kim Kardashian West, and R&B singer Trey Songz. The best man was none other than Virginia Beach native son Pharrell Williams. Given Pusha T's international star status, the couple could have chosen any venue in the world.

Only a month or so earlier there was no clue that Pusha T, born Terrence Thornton, had a grand wedding on his mind. His feud with fellow rapper Drake had reached a new low when Pusha T released the single "The Story of Adidon." In it he alleged Drake had a secret child with a former porn star (which Drake confirmed). He also mocked Drake's producer for having multiple sclerosis and used as the single's cover a photo of Drake in blackface and wearing a Jim Crow T-shirt.

We're hoping, that for a long while to come, focusing on being married is more blissful than beefing.

Richard Shotwell / Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

In this Feb. 26, 2017, file photo, Pharrell Williams arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Williams has shared a plan to change the reputation of College Beach Weekend in Virginia Beach with a festival on the Oceanfront.

In this Feb. 26, 2017, file photo, Pharrell Williams arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Williams has shared a plan to change the reputation of College Beach Weekend in Virginia Beach with a festival on the Oceanfront. (Richard Shotwell / Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

A "Happy" place

Pharrell Williams wants to make a difference in his hometown of Virginia Beach. Specifically, he wants to change the reputation of the annual College Beach Weekend, which is largely looked at as a three-day bacchanalia for spring breakers. (This past year's arrest total: 43.)

So the singer, composer and entertainment visionary proposed a three-day cultural festival, with stages set up on the Oceanfront and at the convention center. Lots of music, of course, but also art, food, fashion and more. He suggested that the event be called "Something in the Water," because that's the explanation people tend to give when explaining how the Hampton Roads region could produce such talent as Pharrell, Missy Elliott, Timbaland and more.

The Virginia Beach City Council liked the idea, and the city's hotel association got behind it as well. Details are still to come, but it appears that this April, the Oceanfront will be a very happy place — "like a room without a roof."

Williams also is consulting with Venture Realty Group, a commercial real estate developer based in Virginia Beach, on possible sites for a future film campus. He created a video proposal that was circulated around the state this past summer.

Phishing trip

Had it really been five years since Phish played at its beloved Mothership, better known as the Hampton Coliseum? Why, yes, it had been.

The venerable Vermont jam band returned for three shows in October – one a sellout, the other two just short, with more than 37,700 tickets sold. As always, the parties in the parking lots were as lively as the concerts inside. This visit marked the latest chapter — and the 19th, 20th and 21st shows — in a relationship between band and venue that dates to the fall of 1995.

The first night opened with a cover of the R&B classic "Strawberry Letter 23," and the final show closed with a rare "second encore" — the Phish classic "You Enjoy Myself." In between, lots of jams, lots of songs both familiar and dug-deep, and a wild run through the song "Tweezer" that set the floor of the Coliseum into a dancing frenzy.

100 and counting

Katherine Johnson, the retired mathematician who went from hidden figure to national icon, turned 100 years old on Aug. 26. She celebrated with a trip to her original home state and her alma mater, West Virginia State University, where a life-size statue was dedicated in her honor at one of her favorite spots on campus.

Johnson, one of the groundbreaking black female mathematicians at the NASA Langley Research Center during the early days of the U.S. space program, became famous through the book "Hidden Figures" and its hit film adaptation. These days she receives fan mail from across the country, much of it from young women inspired by her story. She says that means more to her than any honors, any awards, any public acclaim — the idea that that girls might take a greater interest in science or math because of her story.

She still plays board games and bridge, and she ends every night by sharing a fist bump with her husband at bedtime. And how does she explain her longevity? With a smile: "I'm just lucky — the Lord likes me."

Big nod for Portsmouth's Elliott

Missy Elliott's wild, eccentric style and creative lyricism has suited her well as one of music's best storytellers — it recently earned her a nomination for the prestigious 2019 Songwriters Hall of Fame class. The Portsmouth native could be the first female rapper to enter the organization and the third overall rapper after recent inductees Jay-Z and Jermaine Dupri.

Major moves in the arts

The Portsmouth amphitheater received a new name: the Union Bank & Trust Pavilion. It also had to reschedule several concerts because of structural problems with its roof.

Tidewater Community College announced that it would open the $20 million Patricia & Douglas Perry TCC Center for Visual & Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management in downtown Norfolk. It is scheduled to open in 2021. The city is donating the land at Granby Street and Brambleton Avenue where the Greyhound bus station now sits. The school also acquired the Glass Wheel Studio on Olney Road to house a public gallery and its studio arts program.

Debi Gray, executive director of the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, announced that she will retire Jan. 31, 2019. Gray started at MOCA in 2009 and led the museum through its final steps of accreditation, which it received in 2010. Gary Ryan who served as co-interim executive director and director of development at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, N.Y., will be MOCA's new executive director.

The Chrysler Museum of Art named Robin Rogers as the Perry Glass studio manager and program director. Carolyn Swan Needell joined the Chrysler staff as the Carolyn and Richard Barry curator of glass.

The Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University opened with an extensive art collection donated by philanthropists Richard and Carolyn Barry. The 24,000-square-foot, two-story galleries will feature glass artworks, paintings and even dolls as art. You'll find works from well-known artists, such as Dale Chihuly, and also artists with ties to the university. It's free to visit.

The ViBe Creative District in Virginia Beach got a boost when 10 artists did a painting blitz and painted 10 murals in 10 days. The work was painted on walls between 17th and 19th Streets.

Zombie fried chicken

Farm Fresh's parent company Supervalu Inc. announced Wednesday that it plans to sell 21 of its 38 Farm Fresh stores to Kroger, Food Lion and Harris Teeter for about $43 million in cash. The deal means the three grocers are expanding on the Peninsula.

Supervalu is exiting the Farm Fresh business...

But some locations will continue. The chicken will still fry in at least six locations planned by independent grocers who will keep the Farm Fresh name on life support: You can continue clogging your arteries at 799 Chimney Hill Pkwy. and 928 Diamond Springs Road in Virginia Beach, 4000 Victory Blvd. in Portsmouth, 353 Chatham Drive in Newport News, 460 Wythe Creek Road in Poquoson, and 115 Norge Lane in Williamsburg.

But don't mourn too much for lost Farm Fresh chicken: After a blind taste test conducted by The Pilot, it turned out that dedicated Hampton Roads fried-chicken fans preferred the birds at Harris Teeter and Kroger.

Chefs come home

One of the biggest food trends this year? A number of native Hampton Roads chefs, who departed the region to cook at some of the highest-profile restaurants in the country, came back to take over restaurants closer to home.

In May, Patrick Dunn — a veteran of fine restaurants in New York and Aspen, and Copenhagen's stratospherically famous Noma — brought his farm-to-table ethos and molecular gastronomy background back home as chef-de-cuisine of the restaurant where he got his start, Virginia Beach's acclaimed Terrapin.

Chef Shawn Matijevich cooked at the Freemason Inn before departing for a career at Bryan Voltaggio's Range and David Burke's BLT Prime in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. As of August, he's making flash-frozen capers and terrific octopus at the former Freemason Inn, now transformed into fine-dining spot Four Eleven York.

Suffolk native Courtney White — who cooked at Michelin starred-wine spot Rebelle in New York and legendary Charleston restaurant FIG in South Carolina — came back to start French-influenced wine bistro Blanca, which opened in October in Norfolk's Riverview neighborhood.

After a stint as executive chef at Michelin-starred Fiola in D.C., Michael Maksimowicz came home in December to start Casa Pearl, a new taco and oyster spot in Williamsburg.

Breweries go big

In March, the Vanguard became Hampton Roads' first brewstillery — a massive project in Hampton including a distillery and brewery called Caiseal, a full-service restaurant and a music-venue stage bringing in touring national acts. Not to be outdone, Virginia Beach's Young Veterans Brewing opened a full-service restaurant and live-music venue, The Bunker, in October.

Meanwhile, the region's biggest brewing space changed hands. After being lured in to build a much ballyhooed multimillion-dollar brewhouse in Virginia Beach, San Diego's Green Flash Brewing abruptly closed its doors in March — only to be replaced in September by equally high-profile New Realm Brewing out of Atlanta, helmed by legendary Stone brewer Mitch Steele.

Also in September, Back Bay Brewing opened its long-awaited Farmhouse brewery on Kempsville Road in Virginia Beach, at an eight-acre, century-old working farm that grows its own beer ingredients on the property.

In a third September surprise, Richmond's much-vaunted brewery the Veil — whose fans camp out overnight to pick up hard-to-find new beer releases — announced it would open a second location in Norfolk in 2019, at the former location of the Chophouse on Colonial Avenue. The brewery hosted a preview keg tapping at Selden Market in November, and despite stratospheric beer prices, the lines stretched past the doors of the arcade.

A fashion first for the region

The well-styled Virginia Kids Fashion Week made its debut in October. Created by local model Ashley Hickmann, the fashion showcase offered a platform for both local designers and a well-known national retailer. And the kids — from tykes to tweens to teens — were soooo cute.

Esteemed essayist, entertainment reporter dies

Rashod Dustin Ollison, our own veteran entertainment reporter, critic and essayist, died in October after a three-year battle with cancer. The news surprised readers and even some staffers, as Ollison had continued to write and report even while receiving critical treatment. He was a self-taught master cook, and he had been a music connoisseur since childhood, having a deep affinity for R&B and jazz classics. Beacon Press published his memoir, "Soul Serenade: Rhythm, Blues & Coming of Age Through Vinyl," in 2016. The Arkansas native often was called upon to speak to students and to lend his expertise at industry conferences. Dusty, as he was nicknamed, was an astute cultural observer who often used historical context to inject consciousness into conversations on current pop culture and social developments. And his observations were hilariously biting. His writings earned him 15 awards from the Society of Features Journalism; he was the go-to for composing the appreciations of esteemed entertainers when they passed, most recently Aretha Franklin. It is now our honor to write his. Dusty — gone but never forgotten.